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We are at a strange place in history. Maybe it's just because it's the now that it's apparent to me but there seems to be this strange split going on where there is a movement to get greater safety for athletes yet at the same time there is a desire for more voyeuristic and violent entertainment. If you told me that in the next 25 years football as we know it would completely be eradicated I wouldn't be totally stunned but if you told me that in that same time a network would start running a TV series based on "The Running Man" (or The Hunger Games for the kids out there) I would not be stunned by that either.

I'd be pretty stunned to see football gone in 25 years. The number of "concerned" people is far outweighed by the number of people who want the bread and circuses they want and the number of people who want to make money by providing it to them. The "death" of boxing is not only dramatically overstated, but boxing itself has midwifed the more barbaric version of itself, featuring effectively bare knuckle fighting, outlawed as an affront to civilization in the late 19th century only to reappear in this new 21st century guise. UFC matches are now overtly shown and advertised on FOX and, to a degree, CBS. An environment in which the civilized restraints against bare-knuckle fighting have been overtaken by the relentless march of commerce is not one in which football is going to disappear.

I'm kinda curious how much the "big hits" appeals to fans. Like if it was gone altogether, would fans still love football as much? I'm inclined to say yes. I love the passing and big plays, not necessarily huge hits. Gambling and fantasy football would still be appealing to a lot of fans. If you could somehow legislate that out, I don't think the sport suffers all that much.

Of course, you can still get concussions through routine football play - and that is the more troubling aspect to me. Offensive linemen are getting hit in the head hundreds of times per year, with much less attention that the big hits linebackers dish out.

Of course, you can still get concussions through routine football play - and that is the more troubling aspect to me. Offensive linemen are getting hit in the head hundreds of times per year, with much less attention that the big hits linebackers dish out.

Why not ban all contact to the head? Period. Lineman makes contact above the shoulder level, 15 yds. Do it a 2nd time, ejection and suspension.

I'm kinda curious how much the "big hits" appeals to fans. Like if it was gone altogether, would fans still love football as much? I'm inclined to say yes.

Since entire games can go by without any such "big hits", without appreciably diminishing the level of fans' involvement, I'd be inclined to agree. The secret of the NFL's success lies in it highly competitive nature (thank you Bert Bell and Pete Rozelle), the fact that it's a once a week activity, and its unique blend of brute strength andincredible athleticism. But for every memorable "big hit" play by a Ray Lewis or a Lawrence Taylor, the average fan can remember half a dozen "athletic" plays by an Anquan Boldin or a Colin Kaepernick.

Sometimes I think this place has as much jealous disgust of football and the NFL as some Europeans with their "hand egg" attitude.

Yea, FB is dangerous in ways that baseball or soccer or tiddly-winks isn't. Yes, participation is declining (hint, it has been for decades, SI ran this meme in the mid 90's), yes as currently played at the NFL level a player will probably die on the field in the next decade.

But the vast, vast majority of boys who play HS and college FB are not left with any brain issues and it's really the elite of the elite, the guys that make the NFL, that are at risk. As paid professionals they can make adult decisions about the amount of risk they are willing to incur to play the game they love.

I played 3 sports in HS at a high level and played baseball in college. I tell you what, the lessons and hard work taught on the HIGH SCHOOL football field surpassed anything at the low collegiate baseball level. Football is hard work, much harder work than baseball, that's probably a reason for participation decline as well.

my youngest, who LOOKS like a football player (see frank thomas) gets shtt about not playing. FORTUNATELY he can't run fast (think jose molina with a sore leg) but he's had people tell him that he should "get out there anyway it's good for him)

the twins who are built like runningbacks have been asked/asked to play and i have told them absolutely NO FREAKING way and made sure they met a few guys who are in their 20s who played hs/college ball and have some permanent damage to knees which they can't get fixed because no money to fix it and they hurt all the time

my 3 oldest brothers played and i wonder now a LOT if some of their, uh, problems might could have anything to do with concussions

Why not ban all contact to the head? Period. Lineman makes contact above the shoulder level, 15 yds. Do it a 2nd time, ejection and suspension.

It's not necessarily direct blows to the head that cause the damage. Every collision on the line results in the brain sloshing around in the skull, regardless of whether there's any contact to the head. The current hypothesis is that the aggregation of all those small impacts can add up over time and result in serious damage, even if the player in question never suffered a concussion or big-time blow to the head. If that's the case, it's the contact itself causing the problems, and no amount of technologically advanced helmets or rule changes meant to prevent blows to the head will help.

Why not ban all contact to the head? Period. Lineman makes contact above the shoulder level, 15 yds. Do it a 2nd time, ejection and suspension.

Likewise, ban leading with the head or spearing.

The head slap, formerly legal, has been banned for at least 10 years.

Spearing is banned, too. "Leading with the head" kind of is, but not using that terminology.

The main cause of concussions is running (or moving) real fast, then decelerating real fast, because someone has stopped you from running (or moving). I don't know how that can realistically be eliminated from football, short of somehow slowing people down -- which really isn't realistic.

They did, but the rules were different then (see Broughton rules). I suspect that many of the bouts that went 30+ rounds saw a lot of fighters "taking a knee" in order to start a 30 second count. As long as the boxer got up before the count ended, the fight continued. Unless the two sides had agreed to waive this rule (this practice was considered somewhat "unmanly"), there was nothing to prevent one from going down and getting back up repeatedly in order to rest and recover.

You must not have watching lately. Not only is spearing illegal, but even "launching" in which the defender leaves his feet to make a hit (not involving head contact). One of the issues they've found as these have been made illegal is that it is difficult to stop inadvertant contact of the same kind. Now when a defender approaches a ballcarrier he is try to hit below the head, perhaps the chest or upper arm, but the ballcarrier's first reaction is to compress his body, bracing for impact. Imagine yourself on the field - someone coming at you, inevitable contact. The first reaction is to bring the upper body down - so the head is now just where the defender is aiming.

But the vast, vast majority of boys who play HS and college FB are not left with any brain issues and it's really the elite of the elite, the guys that make the NFL, that are at risk. As paid professionals they can make adult decisions about the amount of risk they are willing to incur to play the game they love.

I'm not sure how we can say that with any certainty. Football players are also much bigger and faster than they used to be, and the long-term effects of this combination are not going to be fully known for a generation.

back in the day, the helmets were better at preventing concussions but worse at preventing broken necks. after stingley they changed the helmets to better prevent broken necks, but they became worse at preventing concussions. at least that's what i was told by a physics professor i had who was involved in the design process.

Rugby has serious concussion problems. I think it would almost certainly exacerbate the problem. Injuries and deaths were common in football in the early years -- it's not like equipment has made things worse, quite the opposite, in fact.

Rugby might, we don't entirely know in part because there's never been a really good study. I would say as an anecdote there haven't been many cases of ex-top players who ended up shooting themselves in the chest because they couldn't remember their children's names.

You must not have watching lately. Not only is spearing illegal, but even "launching" in which the defender leaves his feet to make a hit (not involving head contact). One of the issues they've found as these have been made illegal is that it is difficult to stop inadvertant contact of the same kind. Now when a defender approaches a ballcarrier he is try to hit below the head, perhaps the chest or upper arm, but the ballcarrier's first reaction is to compress his body, bracing for impact. Imagine yourself on the field - someone coming at you, inevitable contact. The first reaction is to bring the upper body down - so the head is now just where the defender is aiming.

Yet guys "launch" themselves at ball-carriers all the time. They try and "blow up" receivers. They try and use their helmets to dislodge the ball.

Basically, you have to take the hard hats away, and force them to wrap-up in order to tackle.

If the defender was not able to lead with the head/shoulder, and "blow up" a ball carrier, the carrier wouldn't need to compress and brace for impact.

I'm not sure how we can say that with any certainty. Football players are also much bigger and faster than they used to be, and the long-term effects of this combination are not going to be fully known for a generation.

Considering that most HS players don't get CTE scans there's no way to know how much damage is actually done at that level. But I suspect the "dumb jock" meme exists for a reason.

Yet guys "launch" themselves at ball-carriers all the time. They try and "blow up" receivers.

Yes, they do try to "blow up" and dislodge the ball, but they don't leave their feet and launch. That's illegal and they do call it. I see your point, regardless of the terminology. I don't see a way out. You have many shoulder pad-to- and leg-to-head impacts. No helmets and those will be causing the concussions. They need 4 inches of silly putty in the helmet. It seems the speed and mass of the players has exceeded the limit at which in can be played safely.

10. Torn. I loved football and playing in jr. high and high school in the 1970s, I learned things on the field I did nowhere else. Like how to push myself beyond where I thought I could go physically time after time; during practices, especially. Two-a-days in August in the SE Texas heat and humidity and mosquitoes, airplane drills, can't go one more step except this maniac LB coach is screaming at me to get up and go, so I do somehow, ten more steps, over and over. You learn things about yourself in times like those. Of course. back then they wouldn't let us drink water on the field, just loaded us up on salt tablets before practice, so maybe they really were trying to kill someone.

On the other hand, I think football is a much more dangerous game today than when I played, just because of the increased size and speed of the players, if nothing else.

My own sons started off playing both baseball and football. One eventually gravitated to baseball exclusively, the other to the electric guitar. When I had decided to end my organized football career after my junior year and informed my father of my decision, he was devastated. When my own boys told me they'd decided to move on, I think I was relieved more than anything else. I don't think I'd have ever prevented either from continuing to play if they wanted to, or tried to steer them to soccer or something. I am just very glad (and lucky) they tried football and got whatever it was they wanted from it and then moved on, relatively unscathed.

It's not necessarily direct blows to the head that cause the damage. Every collision on the line results in the brain sloshing around in the skull, regardless of whether there's any contact to the head. The current hypothesis is that the aggregation of all those small impacts can add up over time and result in serious damage, even if the player in question never suffered a concussion or big-time blow to the head. If that's the case, it's the contact itself causing the problems, and no amount of technologically advanced helmets or rule changes meant to prevent blows to the head will help.

This is true. Getting rid of the three-point stance would probably help somewhat in this regard.

I played 3 sports in HS at a high level and played baseball in college. I tell you what, the lessons and hard work taught on the HIGH SCHOOL football field surpassed anything at the low collegiate baseball level. Football is hard work, much harder work than baseball, that's probably a reason for participation decline as well.

Some of you guys need to get over yourselves. Flame on.

I played football in high school, as did my older brother and my father. My sister's married to a HS football coach. I was steeped in the culture and all of that. It is indeed hard, painful work. I'm sure to an extent that imparts some worthwhile lessons and improves the work ethic. There's also a cultish sense of fealty in football that went beyond the sense of togetherness and teamwork that I experienced in, say, basketball. It creeped me out a little, even at that young age. I'm sure that mentality is linked to the physical rigors, but the "I'll do anything for this authoritarian coach who likes to make us sprint until we puke!" good-soldier stuff is way too prevalent in football for my tastes.

But it's mostly the fear of brain damage that's going to keep my son from playing. I'm actually a "let him learn by hurting himself" kind of parent at times, but I'm not ####### around with his central-nervous system.

But it's mostly the fear of brain damage that's going to keep my son from playing.

I remember my Mom being reluctant to let my older brother play Jr High School football (early '60's, he ended up playing). Somehow my Dad had no problem with me sythesizing and testing small amounts of explosives in the early '70's.

There's also a cultish sense of fealty in football that went beyond the sense of togetherness and teamwork that I experienced in, say, basketball. It creeped me out a little, even at that young age. I'm sure that mentality is linked to the physical rigors, but the "I'll do anything for this authoritarian coach who likes to make us sprint until we puke!" good-soldier stuff is way too prevalent in football for my tastes.

For me, its the sense of inherent exclusive morality that people take from this.

According to the study, the BU researchers now have 50 confirmed cases of former football players with CTE -- 33 who played in the NFL, one in the CFL, one semi-professionally, nine through college and six who played only through high school. That included Nathan Stiles, 17, who died of a subdural hematoma after a hit in a 2010 high school homecoming game in Spring Hill, Kan.

This is all good, and interesting to see the kids who only played in high school, but once again its a self-selected study. If you had a major study that found that 10 or 20% of all high school football players sustained some level of brain injury, then you'd have a world-changing result.

which demands so much from science in steroid threads - demand so little when it's time to #### on football.

I don't think its really comparable. A lot about the former on this site is trying to fight against writers who go 'lots of homers! big heads! steroids are ruining our sacred and pure game!' while about the latter, you mostly see '####, way too many bad things are happening to way too many players'.

If a bunch of former baseball players started showing some pretty devastating side effects to too much steroid use, the consensus would probably be that the drugs need to be banned for the players' health. And if hits to the head only affected the records of the game, and not contributed to long-term brain damage, the consensus here would be to stop freaking out about them so much.

Let's hypothetically say its banned. If cops see kids tackling each other in a field, they go break it up, just like if it were a fistfight, and send the kids on their way, even if they fully expect that they'll be back in the field again tomorrow. Most cops aren't interested in busting heads of a couple children, but teaching what's acceptable and what's not, and hoping enough sticks by the time the children become adults.

My son is 8.5, his two favorite sports are football and skateboarding. Can pop warner football be actually more dangerous than SKATEBOARDING?? The only people wearing any head protection above a knit cap at the skate park are the under 12s there with their parents.

He loves football and is fast and coordinated (like his mom), but tall, skinny, and weak (like his old man). He could maybe be a receiver or corner if he hit the weight room... alot. So far, he has not been willing to go to practice 3 days a week so no Pop warner for him. But I suppose I should actually use my vast background of biomedicine and statistics and read the CTE lit before I sign off.

He probably is biomechanically best suited to pitching, and he hasn't dropped baseball yet (dropped soccer this year to play flag football)

The main cause of concussions is running (or moving) real fast, then decelerating real fast, because someone has stopped you from running (or moving). I don't know how that can realistically be eliminated from football, short of somehow slowing people down -- which really isn't realistic.

On the contrary, people can be slowed down pretty easily by changing the materials used in the turf (and, to a lesser extent, their shoes).

Why not ban all contact to the head? Period. Lineman makes contact above the shoulder level, 15 yds. Do it a 2nd time, ejection and suspension.

Likewise, ban leading with the head or spearing.

I would simply institute a rule that only wrap-around tackles are permitted. You have to tackle with your arms and then drag the player down. This business of defenders launching themselves at offensive players is nonsense.

To some extent, MMA is less brutal than Queensberry boxing because it ends when it is painful, not when you're bludgeoned into unconsciousness. Not that I enjoy either

YR needs to weigh in here, but i think how brutal a queensberry match is depends on the equipment and some of the rule modifications. early to mid 20th century prizefighting featured 6-oz gloves and no standing 8 counts, you didn't have to retire to a neutral corner on a knockdown so an opponent could wait and clock the guy as soon as he stood up ... stuff like that. now, the gloves are like giant pillows, 3-knockdown rules, neutral corner, refs will stop a fight much more early than they used to. it depends on the era. not that boxing is a walk in the park, even now.

i would say on balance that MMA is more brutal just because they allow kicking. ymmv.

also, i think a lot of the brutality and injuries in football would be lessened if they went back to limited subsitutions. i know that sounds counter intuitive, but if guys had to play both sides of the ball, they would be lighter, thus the hits would not be so hard on the body.

Reduce passing. How many injurous hits occur on running plays? In passing you have two players, receiver and QB, whose attention is not on the defenders around them, therefore the expression "defenseless receiver". Besides running plays are just as much fun to watch.
Also, the league could limit the number of plays each player could be on the field in a season, and maybe in a career. If Junior Seau doesn't make his comeback with the Patriots, might he have escaped brain problems.

Reduce passing. How many injurous hits occur on running plays? In passing you have two players, receiver and QB, whose attention is not on the defenders around them, therefore the expression "defenseless receiver".

I've advocated for a massive overhaul of the PI rules, basically allowing no limit to how far down the field defenders could chuck receivers. I think this would serve the dual purpose of making passing less advantageous vs. running the ball (a balance that needs to be restored), while also making passing plays safer in general (at least for the DBs/receivers) as it would (I believe) keep the two in closer proximity and thus reduce the higher-speed impacts.

also, i think a lot of the brutality and injuries in football would be lessened if they went back to limited subsitutions. i know that sounds counter intuitive, but if guys had to play both sides of the ball, they would be lighter, thus the hits would not be so hard on the body.

its not a perfect solution, but it would help. well, maybe not.

Or, you could institute weight limits.

Football was just fine with 230-250 lb. linemen, no need for the 330 lb behemoths.

I've advocated for a massive overhaul of the PI rules, basically allowing no limit to how far down the field defenders could chuck receivers. I think this would serve the dual purpose of making passing less advantageous vs. running the ball (a balance that needs to be restored), while also making passing plays safer in general (at least for the DBs/receivers) as it would (I believe) keep the two in closer proximity and thus reduce the higher-speed impacts.

The evidence on sub-concussive brain trauma and CTE is perhaps the scariest, and those traumas happen to a great degree at the line of scrimmage. I think outlawing the 3-point stance, and forcing everyone to begin from a standing position would be one of the best quick changes to improve safety in football.

There are a bunch of CTE cases from the "deadball" era of pro football, ca. 1970-77, when teams ran all the time (and when players were much lighter). Fred McNeill, ex-Viking LB, is possibly the most tragic -- lawyer, big firm, dementia before 60. Ray Easterling's another.

If the CTE/head trauma/football link is as strong as it appears to be, there really isn't much that can be done (*), other than PRing the problem away and/or promoting the kind of ersatz sympathy America engages in toward its soldiery after throwing it into unnecessary combat.

(*) Other than relatively radical measures such as cutting back to a 12-game schedule, or taxing the profits of NFL franchises at 95%, which would at least internalize the costs. You could take the profit and excess out of the game at both the pro and college levels, so at least people aren't making millions in blood money, but don't hold your breath.